Jimmy was woken by a huff of protest from Joel behind him (Jimmy was curled up facing the wall). "Why? Am I in trouble? I've done nothing wrong." The MudWing snapped.
"We aren't saying that you've done anything wrong, we just want to talk to you to prevent you from doing anything wrong." A voice said gently. Xisuma. "We were just walking anyway, and saw you were awake, so this is a better time than any, I suppose- won't cause a scene."
"I don't want to 'have a talk'. I've done nothing wrong." Joel protested lamely. What's going on? Jimmy half considered opening his eyes and looking but he didn't want to get in trouble.
"Nobody said you've done anything wrong, dude. Just stop complaining- the sooner the lecture's over with, the sooner I can go back to sleep." Cleo's speech was followed by a sharp 'ow' from the hunting supervisor. "What? I'm not wrong."
There was a moment of rebellious muttering before Joel responded. "Fine." There was the sound of roughly three sets of retreating footsteps and then silence.
What was that about? Joel hasn't done anything wrong, has he? Yeah, he's been a bit more sleepy and irritable lately, but I'm sure there's a good reason for that.
The tribrid opened his eyes and stood up-
To find his gaze landing on Sausage, who froze in his attempt at sneaking out of the cave.
"What are you doing awake?" Jimmy hissed.
"What am I- what are you doing awake?" The part SkyWing protested lamely, clearly trying to take the attention off of himself.
"I asked you first, bird brain." Sausage looked mildly offended at the insult to SkyWings before shrugging and walking out of the cave. Jimmy followed him closely, careful not to trip over any of his sleeping clawmates.
"I've been kinda- restless lately. I think one of the big events I've seen is coming up." His friend confessed quietly as they walked in the direction Xisuma, Cleo and Joel had (at least, it sounded like they had).
"Big events?" Jimmy echoed, more than a little confused (if not slightly concerned).
"Well- I've started calling them 'turning points'. That's what the old NightWings with future sight called them. I think one called Moonwatcher started it. Anyway, it's essentially where the multiple outcomes could come from. Where a bad- or good- choice could be made." Sausage shrugged. "There's no telling what could be the tipping point between the good and bad paths. No matter how much I've looked at them, there's nothing to change how he responds- it seems like a matter of chance."
"Who's 'he'?" The olive green-scaled dragonet queried, becoming more concerned than confused as their conversation continued.
His companion ignored his question, still frowning. "Anyway, I've kind of been studying the potential timelines, like I said, and I haven't really been able to sleep lately, so I could only assume a turning point was coming up. That's only happened once or twice before, though, so I didn't know that was the reason why at first."
"What are the... events that could happen in the bad path?" Sausage continued to ignore him.
"I will say, it is leaning towards the bad path, but I am remaining hopeful. However, he has been displaying some traits of a soul-broken animus- as I believe is the term- lately, which is unfortunate- if it was just his personality, fair enough, but he seems to have developed them over almost a week. For example- restlessness, an inability to sleep or difficulty trying to sleep, being more likely to lash out, extremely violent tendencies- did you see how he ripped that chicken's head off during hunting?-, lack of empathy- he didn't seem to care at all when Katherine practically had a breakdown in class, and considering the fact that even Xornoth and Joey were concerned, that's bad-"
"Who are we talking about here? Xisuma?" Jimmy tried hopefully.
Yet again Sausage didn't respond, continuing to ramble. "However, it does seem that him talking to you and Lizzie seems to be delaying the potential worst path, because you two often discourage him from doing extra spells where he doesn't need to, which can only be a positive thing. However, he has also cast extra spells to aid you, such as enchanting Lizzie's crown to float, or enchanting you to object less to his spells, which can't be-" Wait, what?
"Someone cast a spell on me?! How do you know that?" Jimmy paused. "Please tell me it was at least on a piece of jewellery, that a spell was not cast on me."
"Well, he mentions casting that spell on you further along one of the bad timelines- he removes it immediately after this discussion in the good timeline- and no, it wasn't on jewellery, it was on you, unfortunately." The hybrid informed him with a regretful expression. "But yeah, we can only listen unfortunately- any instance where we intervene leads to a bad timeline- of course bad timelines can still happen without us interfering, but out of the seventeen bad timelines where we interfere, we're both killed in five of them, I die in six of them- including the five where we both die- and you die in eleven of them- also including the timelines where we both die. So... not great odds if we intervene."
"What? That's like- a..." Jimmy paused, doing hasty maths in his head. "Twelve in seventeen odd of one of us dying? Hey, why is it mostly me, what the-"
"So we probably shouldn't intervene- however, in roughly half of the bad timelines where we run to get help, less dragons die, so we should keep that in mind- but hopefully we shouldn't go to any of the bad timelines." Sausage paused, blinking as if just coming out of a trance or something. "Woah, I sounded so smart then- oh, here we are." The pair had stopped outside the entrance to the Great Hall (also known as the entrance cave).
"Okay, now that you're done ignoring me- who's 'he'? Who's the one who can change the timeline? The- the one who put a spell on me?" Jimmy demanded.
Sausage glanced at him mournfully. "Oh, Jimmy..."
"It's Joel."
Oop the plot is plotting
Sausage is big brain and has done research about something for the first time ever
Also Joel is about to be either really cringe or really cool btw
Comments and votes are appreciated :D
Sorry for any errors <3 :]
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Greater Powers- An Empires S1 Wings of Fire AU
FanfictionA new group of dragonets that have to save Pyrrhia and Pantala. Again. And Jimmy, a very confused tribrid just trying to do well at Jade Mountain Academy, has somehow ended up as part of that group. Between trying to do well at school and an odd Sea...
